In a previous blog on this site (Hypnosis Can be Effective in Managing Pain), it is mentioned that hypnosis can be helpful in reducing patients’ pain and anxiety during surgery, prior to chemotherapy treatments for cancer patients and alleviating chronic tension headaches.

If fact, hypnosis is likely to be effective for most people suffering from diverse forms of pain. While hypnosis is typically used as a procedure to facilitate other types of therapies and treatments, evidence for the effectiveness of hypnosis to decrease sensitivity to pain – known as hypno-analgesia – has been supplemented by well-controlled experiments. In their 2003 review of controlled clinical studies, Dr. D. R. Patterson and fellow psychologist Mark Jensen, PhD, found that hypno-analgesia is associated with significant reductions in: ratings of pain, need for analgesics or sedation, nausea and vomiting, and length of stay in hospitals. Hypnosis has also been associated with better overall outcome after medical treatment and greater physiological stability. Surgeons and other health providers have reported significantly higher degrees of satisfaction with their patients treated with hypnosis than with their other patients.

Hypno-analgesia is likely to decrease acute and chronic pain in most individuals, and to save them money in surgical procedures. Hypnotic analgesia has been used successfully in a number of interventions in many clinics, hospitals, and burn care centers, and dental offices. For acute pain, it has proven effective in interventional radiology, various surgical procedures (e.g., appendectomies, tumor excisions), the treatment of burns (dressing changes and the painful removal of dead or contaminated skin tissue), child-birth labor pain, bone marrow aspiration pain, and pain related to dental work, especially so with children. Chronic pain conditions for which hypnosis has been used successfully include, among others, headache, backache, fibromyalgia, carcinoma-related pain, temporal mandibular disorder pain, and mixed chronic pain.

If you’re having trouble with acute or chronic pain, call (210) 325-1567.

Hypnosis for the Relief and Control of Pain, American Psychological Association, July 2, 2004